Between A Rock And A Hard Place
by IDigTheFuzzyDude
Summary: When cliche' settings get the best of you. A companion piece to Plain And Simple. [Tsume x Hige]


Title: Between A Rock And A Hard Place (Pun FULLY intended.)

By: Moi (aka-Edainme)

Disclaimer: Uh...I own nothing. Because I'm sad and broke.

Rating: R (For gratuitous swearing and a little bit of heavy petting.)

Summary: A companion piece to Plain And Simple.[Tsume x Hige]

Author's note: 'Allo! If you read my other story, then, y'know, WHOO! But, if you didn't, it's okay, because you're taking the time to read this one, and that's all I wanted anyway. Review, if you please, whether it be praise or flame. I'll accept both happily. And, in case of the latter, I might take up smoking.

-As with P&S, post Taken!Cheza, pre Blue.

**Between A Rock And A Hard Place**

The afternoon sun beat down, harsh and unyielding in its heat though its brightness was shielded by a canopy of trees. The light played about the grassy terrain, shifting with every breeze, making the air chilled in the shade. It was at this time that he came to a conclusion.

Afternoons like this _sucked_.

"This blows," said Hige, eloquent as ever. Beside him, his semi-companion snorted.

"If you can't think of anything intelligent to say, then don't talk."

The other boy looked indignant. "Well _you're _not talking and I _hate _uncomfortable silences!"

Tsume didn't even look up at him. "Remind me why I should care, again?"

Hige didn't reply, and instead grumbled to himself along with his stomach.

"If it weren't for you and your damn appetite, we wouldn't even be out here, so can it!"

"Well, I was hungry!"

Tsume whipped around to glare at him. "You're ALWAYS hungry!"

Hige sniffed. "I can't help it. It's my nature."

"You and your nature suck."

Hige coughed delicately.

_'Don't say it, don't say it, don't say it,' _ Hige thought to himself, desparately.

"Was that a request or a demand?" He heard himself say.

_'DAMNITT!'_

Tsume's glare intensified a tenfold and Hige stared, wondering to himself if he truly had a deathwish. But instead of inflicting excruciating agony, Tsume turned on his heel and stalked deeper into the woods, muttering under his breath.

Hige sighed heavily in relief. He may have been bold, but he wasn't stupid. Or fearless.

Kiba was the fearless one.

Kiba was also the one that was hardest on them. He pushed them to and often beyond the brink of exhaustion. His endurance seemed eternal, and he also seemed to forget that theirs wasn't. At least Tsume, as churlish as he was, knew when to stop and rest.

Tsume. He just didn't understand that guy.

He was always _saving_ him. To why, Hige was clueless. If he thought their search for Paradise was as stupid as he claimed, why did he continue with them? He should just leave and save himself the hassle.

But he never did. Instead, he stood beside them, as one of them, especially when they needed them the most.

Hige just _didn't _understand.

Tsume stayed with them, fought with them, suffered with him. But he never laughed with them.

Granted, he laughed _at _them. Hige in particular. Although, Hige admitted to himself, he did occasionally say stupid things. And Tsume took every oppurtunity to rib him about it.

Jerk.

Always bitching and moaning about how stupid they were. But since this was Hige, the word 'moaning' triggered a whole train of thought that he really didn't wish to stumble upon at the moment. And, as he attempted to rid his mind of certain inappropriate mental images while praying that Tsume hadn't suddenly developed a sense of telepathy and not told them, he ran into the object of said thoughts.

Crap.

Tsume stiffened at the unwanted contact (1). Hige's eyes widened and warning bells sounded in his head and all he could think about was how warm he suddenly seemed.

CRAP.

Before he could gather his thoughts enough to keep the blood from flowing out of his head (2), Tsume began to walk.

"You coming?"

Hige choked.

"I-I-I'm, uh...Yeah, sure."

Innuendo. The gift that just keeps on giving. He sighed. This was _so _screwed up. With that thought in mind, he caught up with Tsume, albeit a little distanced.

Distance was good.

"C'mon Porky, hurry it up. Our dinner ain't gonna come to us."

"I know that, I'm going, and STOP CALLING ME PORKY!"

"Large. Chunky. Robust. Plump. Tub-"

"STOP IT. God, you're such an asshole!"

Tsume smirked. "And you get riled way too easy." He snickered as Hige glared at him. "Aww, did I hurt the poor piggy's feelings?" he asked, mockingly.

Hige huffed at the blatant cruelty, muttering, and Tsume battled a chuckle. The guy was just TOO easy to irritate. And Tsume was always up for a bit of target practice.

"No wonder you never had any friends, you act like such a dick all the time!" spat Hige, before he thought.

Tsume stopped and his brain froze on one image.

Gehl.

Gehl who had wanted to be his friend.

Gehl who had wanted to fight beside him.

Gehl who was dead because Tsume had failed to save him.

Tsume shook his head angrily, forcing the image of the boy's terrified face to the back of his mind. But Hige had noticed. He's seen the flashes of remorse that had quickly transformed back into that 'bored-to-tears' facade. Oh yeah, he saw it. He didn't understand it much, but he saw it, and instantly felt a sliver of regret work its way into his stomach.

"Look, I-"

"Shut up." growled Tsume, his face stony as he began to move forward through the quickly darkening woods.

"I didn't mean-"

"Shut. Up."

Of course, being Hige, he didn't.

"I was just trying to apologize, ya' jerk! What's your prob-"

And then the bark of the nearest tree was biting into his back even through his shirt and molten gold eyes bore into his own, harsh and angry and overwhelming.

But he couldn't have looked away if he'd tried.

"You wanna know what the hell my problem is? **YOU **are my problem!"

Hige blinked at the man in front him as Tsume ranted on.

"You always have to push it, don't you? You can't just shut up, CAN YOU?! You've always gotta put your two cents in, ESPECIALLY when we don't want it! (3)" His voice suddenly went flat, more of what Hige was accustomed to hearing. "So you wanna know what my problem is? The question should be what YOUR problem is."

But Hige was barely listening. He didn't want to hear the frigid tone that countered his earlier statements.

He wanted to hear that heat again.

It was something he'd never heard from the other man before. Like Tsume really meant what he was saying, instead of the usual empty, frost-bitten words that all too often came from him.

Granted, the general sentiment was that he hated Hige with the fire of a thousand suns, but hey, progress was progress, right?

He focused back on Tsume's face, which was glaring at him with such a ferocity that he flinched slightly.

Then his mind registered what Tsume had said.

And then he totally blew up.

"What's MY problem?! I want to know why you have to be such a jerk all the time, huh? And then you go saving my ass! Do you like confusing the hell out of me or something? Do you think I'm stupid? Then _enlighten _me! Why do you _hate _me so much?!"

Tsume stared, knowing that he had answers and a few denials to every one of those questions. He also knew that Hige wasn't finished yet by the way he drew in a breath, his wine-coloured eyes flashing with another barrage of questions and accusations. He was so close, he could see every ounce of emotion and anger and frustration there. But Tsume wasn't in the mood to answer any of his questions. And he knew that Hige wouldn't listen to anything Tsume had to say at the moment, regardless of what it was.

So, Tsume quieted him the only other way he could think of.

Hige continued on, oblivious to the thoughts of the other male. All he could think about was how angry and stupid he was and how Tsume was such an ass and why he was so affected by his words. He was so immersed in his own thoughts that he was taken completely by surprise when his back suddenly hit that tree for a second time and another mouth was covering his own.

Amidst the complete meltdown his mind was currently suffering and the mental shouting of 'OHMIGOD' and 'WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING?!', he found himself responding.

_DAMNITT!_

Then the warmth was gone and and he was left feeling very empty. He cracked open an eye to peer at the man before him. Tsume's face held an odd expression, before slipping into something unreadable. Hige's breathing finally slowed and the expected question suddenly burst forth from his lips.

"What the _HELL_ was that?!"

Tsume clenched his teeth for a moment. "Well...You wouldn't have shut up any other way!"

Hige stared. "That's IT?" he said, before he could stop himself.

Tsume stared back and Hige coughed. "Well, I mean, you could've hit me or somethin'! Not that I would have wanted you to or anything," he added hastily, the flicker of amusement in the other's eyes as Tsume's eyebrows rose.

"Shut up and keep moving, lardass." said Tsume, harshly. "It's nearly sundown."

Hige glared, not moving. "I'm -not- hungry."

Tsume stopped, incredulous. "Since WHEN?"

"Since you just did...That!"

"Did what?"

"YOU KNOW WHAT!"

"Oh, get over it. It was the only way to get you to pipe down. Didn't mean anything."

Hige was silent a moment as one lone thought wormed it's way through his brain.

_'Yeah, but what if I wanted it to?'_

"Sure, whatever." he said, stalking ahead. Tsume rolled his eyes.

"What's your problem now?"

Hige whirled around to face him. "You wanna know what my problem is?" he shouted, throwing Tsume's words back in his face. "YOU are my problem!"

Tsume looked slightly startled, before yelling back, "I didn't even do anything, stupid!"

"The HELL you didn't!"

"What're you gettin' so worked up about?!"

"Because you're so damn CONFUSING! Don't start what you're not going to finish!"

Ugh.

WHY couldn't he just learn to keep his mouth SHUT?

Tsumed snarled slightly. "You want me to 'finish what I started', huh?" he asked, his teeth bared in what could almost be taken as a grin if Hige hadn't known better. And before he could blink he was cursing that stupid tree for the third time that evening as he felt a familiar digging sensation in his spine on account of Tsume slamming him into it.

Oh boy.

Hige felt the slightly younger (4) man's mouth seal itself with his own again and he groaned unintentionally. He felt Tsume smirk rather than saw it and might have glared at him if his eyes hadn't been occupied with rolling back into his head. He felt his hands fist in Tsume's hair and then heard a growl.

Whoops. A wee bit too tight, eh? Heh.

They broke apart moments later (Oxygen, you see.).

"That about what you had in mind?" asked Tsume, panting for air and with the tiniest hint of fondness.

"Hummm-Better." Sure Hige. Very cool. He mentally stabbed himself in the head with something really pointy.

Tsume snorted. "Bit excited there, huh?" he asked, but the mocking tone was absent.

Hige glared half-heartedly. "Don't like you," he mumbled, not trusting his voice's response to the hot breath fanning his neck.

"The feeling is mutual, trust me." said Tsume, his hands pinning Hige to his spot on that lovely brown bark.

Hige squirmed. "You're the bane of my existance."

"I'd be surprised if you could even SPELL existance," countered Tsume.

Hige went to make a comeback, but it quickly diminished into a gritted "HATE you" as he felt their hips grind together.

Tsume snickered. "Afraid I didn't hear ya', Porky. Can you repeat that?"

"Uuuhnng," came the response. It was all Tsume could do not to laugh.

Then he was pushed roughly out of his musings and away from the body he'd been holding captive. He blinked.

"BUNNY!" cried Hige, looking like a little kid on Christmas and pointing to their soon-to-be dinner.

Tsume rolled his eyes as the older boy ran off, wildly chasing the rabbit he spotted.

_'Some things'll never change,' _he thought, and with a resigned, though inaudible sigh, he took off after Hige.

Hige.

Hmmph.

He just _DIDN'T _understand that guy.

-fin-

Author's Note: Oh good God, I'm sorry if it sucked. I really am. But if it didn't, then WOOT.

Footnotes-

1. Oh, unwanted my ASS.

2. Okay, that was a totally unintended pun, but I read it over, laughed, and kept it anyway.

3. Yes. He DID say 'we'. Mwahahaha.

4. I bought a New Type magazine, and it was talking with the director (Or something) of Wolf's Rain, and it said that Kiba and Tsume were 17, Hige was 18, and Toboe was a lot younger. I laughed. A LOT.

REVIEW, PEOPLE. I'll give you a hug! Sort of.

**_Edit:_** Oh my God, I had so many typos in there it wasn't even funny. I've gone and fixed them, and hopefully cleared up some confusion. As for the lovely, lovely people who have already reviewed, thank you! And to Rinny1, thank you for pointing them all out so I could fix them. And I know, they DID say they didn't matter, but I had to share it with as many people I could because I about pissed my pants laughing at that.


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